The Role of Immersive Arts in Interpreting Traditional Cultural Phenomena

Abstract

Immersive art is a new form of media art that relies on the theory of stream of consciousness, on the stimulation of various human senses, often using light to achieve a deep psychological and physiological immersion of the audience in a trance-like empathy with the art. From the point of view of technical means it can be divided into virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and expanded reality. The article analyses the problems of using technical means of immersive art, considers the advantages and disadvantages of its application in various cultural expositions. The questions arising when applying the means of immersive art to traditional culture (in this case to shamanic culture) are considered. The study finds that works of immersive art demonstrate contemporary culture much more often than traditional culture. Using the example of four technical tools in analysing works of immersive art, the author describes the problems that exist at this stage of its application. The aim of the work is to identify and consider the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating traditional meanings into virtual reality. The tasks of the work include: analysing technical means of immersive art, peculiarities of embodiment of traditional meanings in immersive art (on the example of shamanism). The author argues that virtual spaces created by immersive art are currently gravitating towards purely sensory experience and are not able to carry information about the connotation of meanings. In the process of creating works of immersive art, artists have their own understanding of shamanic culture and cannot reproduce shamanic rituals, so there is a problem of inability to interpret the cultural connotation and show the depth of the rich traditional shamanic culture.